British Airways Cuts Costs To Deal With Flight Delays

According to inside reports, British Airways is to add an extra economy site into every aisle of it’s Boeing 777 planes, which will see fifty-two extra seats added onto every plane.

image from: http://twitter.com/LondonAirTravel

The company has been reported to have taken the action, because of competition from low budget airlines, and the move to add more seats will allow it to compete effectively against its competition. This move will only affect planes operating out of Gatwick, however once the changes to it’s Gatwick based fleet are complete, British Airways plans to roll-out further seating increases to it’s Heathrow based planes. The airline has termed the moves to increase passenger space as “densifying.”

The Chief Executive of British Airways, Willie Walsh told the telegraph.co.uk

“We’re responding to a market opportunity.”

He said the move would allow BA to “lower the average cost per seat, charge a lower price and stimulate demand”.

A British Airways spokesman said: “We are flying more customers than ever before to our expanding network of destinations.

“To meet this demand, we are updating our 777 cabins to bring us into line with many of our competitors and allow us to offer even more low fares.

“As part of the update, we will also be fitting new entertainment systems with bigger screens.

Other airlines which have added more seats to its economy class planes include: Air New Zealand, Emirates and Air France. BA will also increase it’s capacity on short-haul Airbus A320 flights flying out from Heathrow, by adding twelve more seats to every plane.

The move by airlines to increase passenger space may be in part due to airlines having to pay out compensation for delayed or cancelled flights. However, if these planes, with more passenger are held-up in the future, then surely it will simply means, there will be more disgruntled passengers who will be able to make flight delay compensation claims.